In the morning the car stood in front of the house.
It was not a bus. It was not a taxi. It was a car that looked as if it belonged to the hotel: dark, clean, impersonal, with a driver who had no voice, because voices only disturb in such services.
Hans Castorp stepped outside.
The air was cold, but no longer wintry. It was early summer, that strange state in which the highlands pretend they can play at being spring, while still carrying, in the shadows, a little bit of death within them.
He saw the orange lifebuoy.
It no longer lay half in the snow, because the snow had disappeared; it now lay on a clean stone, as if it had been placed there so that it would remain symbolic. On it stood the name of the house, black on orange, sun on rescue.
Hans Castorp paused for a moment.
The ring on his finger. The ring outside.
He thought: Everything rings.
Then he got in.
Gustav von A. was already sitting in the car. He was not looking out the window. He was looking into his notebook.
“Good morning,” said Hans Castorp.
Gustav von A. nodded without looking up.
“Morning,” he said.
The car started moving.
They drove.
First through the orderly grounds of the resort, past the neatly trimmed hedges, the clean paths, the clean promises. Then out onto the road that wound down in curves.
Hans Castorp watched the Sonnenalp grow smaller behind them.
The house stayed.
And yet with every curve it lost a little of its magic.
That is how it is with places, esteemed reader, dear reader: As long as one is in them, they are world. As soon as one leaves them, they become landscape. And landscape is less dangerous because it no longer addresses us.
The car drove through forest.
The forest smelled of earth.
It did not smell of disinfectant. Not of perfume. Not of program.
Hans Castorp inhaled deeply.
He felt how his body took the air like a memory.
“You are breathing,” said Gustav von A. without looking up.
Hans Castorp gave a short laugh.
“Yes,” he said. “That is still part of the program.”
Gustav von A. was silent.
Then he said:
“Breathing is not a program. Breathing is a fate. Programs come later.”
Hans Castorp looked at him.
“You hate programs,” he said.
“No,” said Gustav von A. “I use them. But I do not believe in them.”
Hans Castorp looked at his ring.
He thought of Dr. AuDHS: Do not believe everything the ring tells you.
“And what do you believe in?” asked Hans Castorp, and in his question he heard the wish that Gustav would take something off his shoulders.
Gustav von A. raised his gaze, looked briefly out the window as if he wanted to check whether the world was still there.
“I believe,” he said, “in water.”
Hans Castorp swallowed.
“Water?” he repeated.
“Yes,” said Gustav von A. “It is the only thing that really is time. Everything else only pretends to be.”
Hans Castorp was silent.
The car drove on.
The curves became fewer.
The landscape opened up.
They reached the valley.
The valley was green.
Green, not blue.
Hans Castorp thought of Morgenstern, of the donkey, of the tiger, of the lion, of the blue grass. He thought of how Dr. AuDHS had told them that System 1 is a poor statistician. And he thought: Maybe System 1 is also a poor geographer. It takes everything that is below for salvation. It takes everything that is beautiful for truth.
The ring showed a heart rate.
It was calm.
Hans Castorp did not feel calm.
That is, esteemed reader, dear reader, the first small irony of the journey: The body can be calm, and the person can be restless. And when one has learned to believe the body, one is surprised by one’s own inner self.
